Smoking kills
over 430,000 smokers (equivalent to one Oakland, CA) and
over
53,000 non-smokers (equivalent to almost one entire Vietnam War for
Americans)
in the US each year, with millions more
dying around the world.

The 450
pesticides and herbicidesapproved for use on tobacco not only adversely
affect farm workers and their families, but
spray-drift and run-off of these dangerous
chemicals pose
serious risks to the environment,
poisoning our air, water, and the
people and animals that depend on them.
“Cigarette and cigar making
produces large quantities of waste in the form of
tobacco slurries,
solvents, oils and greases, paper, wood, plastics, packaging
materials and
airborne pollution - as well as toxic chemical waste.... From growing
the
tobacco plant to disposal of butts and packaging, the whole life cycle of a
cigarette takes a heavy toll on the environment.” Source:
ASH,
“The
Environmental Impacts of Tobacco”

,
abandoning communities with the same lack of concern as
when they exploit
and poison them. The tobacco industry also reduces precious
biodiversity, substituting it “with largely monoculture plantations of
non-indigenous
species”, causing untold and irreparable harm to ecosystems
and their inhabitants,
here and abroad.

“Every year, thousands of
acres of forests are cut down to make room for new
tobacco plantations and
to provide fuel to cure (dry) the tobacco.” Source:
Brazil Case Study

“Cigarettes
may cost smokers more
then they believe. A study by a team of health
economists finds the combined
price paid by their families and society is about $40
per pack of
cigarettes.” Further, the high cost
that individuals spend on cigarettes,
despite US government subsidies to tobacco farmers, could be
used for much more
healthy, more enjoyable, and more considerate
and just activities.

Support
for right-wing politicians,
lyingand fraud (they lied to the FDA and the Congress
and they lied to
us), deception, spiking, pushing, addicting kids with cartoon
characters,
greed, ads, PR, spin, suppressing scientific studies and
evidence of cancer and other deadly connections: reactionary tobacco
corporations have done all this and more. Cigarette
companies have
known for decades that nicotine is addictive and that cigarettes
cause
cancer, but they actively suppressed this information and lied about
it, even when under
oath in Congress.Cigarette
companies are guilty of scamming us in the worst way, by
making us pay for
our own suffering.Say No to Joe Chemo, don’t be tricked by
Phraud
Morris, and
resistthe Marlboro Mauling.
“I knew that the
tobacco companies would gladly market a
dangerous, addictive
product, and that they would use cartoon characters to
aim their advertising
prowess at children, customers they hoped to one day
hook. I knew that the
industry was willing to knowingly sell a consumer
product that, when used as
directed, kills more than a third of its
customers.

“To continue to smoke and put
the health of your family and loved-ones at risk
would seem, on the face of
it, to be a rather selfish act. When you take into account
the damage that
smoking is doing to your own body then it seems more like insanity.
Think of
how traumatic it would be if a member of your family became ill or died
because of your smoking habit. Now consider the fact that they would feel
exactly
the same way if smoking ended your life prematurely or made you
seriously ill.”
Source:
“Passive Smoking – What You Should Know”